Surrendering to Us (29 page)

“So how did it go?” I said to Lucah when we could finally talk like our regular selves outside the office building.

“I called to make sure he arrived at the appointment, and he did, but that’s all I can do. I’m just hoping the apartment isn’t a disaster when we get back.” He raised the hand that wasn’t held by mine and crossed his fingers. I crossed my eyes at him and that made him laugh.

“Oh, and Sloane texted and said she was coming home early so she could cook us dinner. I didn’t ask if she would be cooking in her apartment or ours.” I just gave him a look. We were definitely going to knock before we opened the front door. Ryder and Sloane was something I did NOT want to see.

Lucah and I talked about other things on the way home, and during the elevator ride up to our apartment. He listened at our door before getting out his key and jingling it in the lock quite loudly and opening the door slowly.

Nothing. The apartment was dark and no one was there.

“Maybe he took a nap,” I said, going to check his bedroom. It was empty, the bed still unmade from that morning. We checked the rest of the apartment, which didn’t take long, but Ryder was nowhere to be found.

“When I find him, I’m going to kill him,” Lucah said, getting his phone out to call Ryder. The sound of a rock song I didn’t know blasted from the coffee table, where he’d left his phone. Lucah swore again.

“Calm down. Let me go down the hall and see if Sloane’s seen him.” I dashed down the hall and knocked on Sloane’s door.

“It’s open!” she yelled.

I was just about to ask her if she’d seen Ryder, but I didn’t have to. He was standing in her kitchen, laughing at something she’d said.

“Oh, hey, Ryder. We were wondering where you were. Lucah’s been freaking out because you left your phone at our place.” He pretty much ignored me.

“Hey,” Sloane said, elbowing him. “Don’t be an asshole.”

“I’m not being an asshole. I am just silently objecting to the fact that I’m being treated like a lost child. Pretty soon here my brother is going to chain me to the radiator. That wouldn’t be the first time, but all the other times were for more pleasurable reasons.” He wiggled his eyebrows and Sloane giggled. There it was again. That giggle.

“Well, anyway. Maybe you could leave a note next time? He was worried.” I was still standing in the doorway, nervous about entering.

“Sure, I’ll get right on that,” he said with a smirk.

That smirk was the last straw.

“Look, I get that you don’t like me, and that’s fine. Go ahead. Hate me. But what you fail to realize is that you are living in MY house. I didn’t have to let you in, but I did. Because you’re my boyfriend’s brother and you needed a place to go. In case you haven’t noticed, no one else was standing in line to help you. So I would appreciate it if you could treat me like a human being. And if you EVER ogle me like you did this morning again, I will come into your room when you are sleeping and you will wake up minus one penis and a set of balls. Got it?” I didn’t mean to pull out the voice I used to reprimand employees when they screwed up, but once I started, I couldn’t stop. I’d also moved until I was looking directly up at Ryder.

“I wouldn’t mess with her. She means business,” Sloane said, standing beside me and pointing at Ryder with her spatula.

“I . . . “ He seemed to be at a loss for words. Thank God. Miracles were possible.

“So. That’s all I have to say. I’m going to leave now.” I turned on my heel and stomped out the door, but an arm caught me before I could step into the hallway.

“I’m sorry,” Ryder said, shrugging. I waited for something more, but then his jaw clenched and he let go. That was all I was going to get. But it was a start.

“Thank you for your apology. It has been accepted. Now I suggest you come back down the hall with me so your brother, who cares about you, doesn’t have a heart attack before he turns thirty.” I didn’t look back to see if he was still behind me, but I heard him say something to Sloane and then he did follow.

“Found him,” I said to Lucah and pointing over my shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” Ryder said before Lucah could even get up the breath to start yelling at him. “I went down the hall to help Sloane with dinner. I thought it would be nice. I should have left a note. I won’t do it again.” Wow. Why didn’t I get that with my apology?

Lucah’s face was red from his suppressed anger, but I saw him reel it in and nod.

“Okay. Just don’t do it again.” Ryder nodded and that was that. No one said anything more about it.

Ryder ended up going back down the hall to help Sloane carry everything over to our place. She’d really gone all out with sausage and rice stuffing in baked acorn squashes, a chopped salad topped with goat cheese and cranberries, and a white chocolate and raspberry mousse for dessert.

Ryder was the only one who hadn’t yet sampled what Sloane could cook and it was kind of funny to watch his face as he ate.

“Fuck, this is good,” he said with his mouth full.

“Thanks,” Sloane said, ducking her head. She normally took praise well, but Ryder was different.

“This is really great, Sloane. Another masterpiece,” I said and she grinned at me. She was glowing, and it wasn’t the tall candles she’d lit for ambience that caused it.

There was more silence as we ate, and I wished I knew something to say to make it stop.

“My therapist farted during our session,” Ryder said out of the blue. It almost made me knock over one of the candles as I reached for seconds of salad.

Lucah and Sloane both snorted, and then Lucah glared.

“What? It’s true. He tried to pretend it was the chair or something, but he definitely did.” I couldn’t hold my laughter in anymore, and once I started laughing, everyone else did. Even Ryder.

“How was the session, other than that?” Lucah asked.

Ryder shrugged.

“I don’t know. It seems weird to pay someone to listen to you bitch about your problems. I don’t know if it’s working yet.”

“Well, it takes time,” Sloane said. “And sometimes you need to find the right one. I went through three before I found one I liked.”

Sloane mentioning she was in therapy caused Ryder to turn completely in her direction.

“What were you in for?”

“Ah, the list is long,” she said with a smile. I knew what was on that list, but it was her story to tell. “But I had this one guy who had a lazy eye, so I was never sure if he was looking directly at me. I felt horrible, but it was really hard to focus during the sessions.” I remembered her telling me about him, and that got all of us laughing again, and we started telling random stories.

“If he farts in the next session, I’m going to have to get someone else. I just can’t deal with that,” Ryder said. For the first time since I’d seen him in the hospital, his face was open and he smiled easily. Especially at Sloane.

We finished dinner and Ryder offered to help Sloane with the dishes, which she accepted. I gave her a warning look as she left with him, but she just gave me one back.

“That was so much better,” Lucah said after they’d left. “I haven’t seen that side of him in a really long time. He was a riot when we were kids. Our family clown. Whenever things were at their worst, he’d make a joke, or do something absolutely stupid to make us forget that we didn’t have any money, or Dad had lost another job.” He shook his head at the memories.

“I’d thought maybe that part of him was gone, but it was nice to see it again.”

“It was. I was beginning to think he was a complete asshole.”

“He’s still an asshole. He’s just nice every once in awhile.”

“I don’t know ANYONE like that,” I said, pulling at his tie.

“It’s probably genetic,” he agreed.

Using his tie, I dragged him toward the bedroom. We could get in a quickie while they were doing the dishes. We only needed a few minutes now.

“Why, Miss Clarke, you vixen,” he said, slamming the bedroom door. I pulled him toward the bed, but he stopped me.

“Wait just a second.” He put on some music and turned it up. “Just in case.” Luckily, it was sexy-type music. “A Kiss to Build a Dream On” by Louis Armstrong. Definitely sexy.

“We could always hang a sock on the doorknob. That’s what Sloane and I did in college.”

He just shut my mouth with a kiss, and the next thing I knew he was going down on me and I was coming and then he was inside me and then . . . the front door shut. Loudly.

“Fuuuuuucccccckkkkkkk,” Lucah said, glancing over his shoulder at the door. “I swear to God.”

“Don’t stop,” I said, because we were kind of at the point of no return, so he focused back on me and then he came a moment later.

“What do we do now?” I said, over the music, which switched to playing “Wild Horses” by The Sundays.

“Wait for them to leave?” We froze as we were, both staring at the door. You’d think, this being the millionth time we’d almost been caught having sex, that we would have a contingency plan by now. But no. We didn’t.

The door slammed again and we both sighed. Lucah laughed against my shoulder and pulled out. He put on a pair of boxers and motioned for me to stay in bed. He went to the door, opened it and peered out to make sure we were alone.

“Hello?” No one answered, so he gave me the thumbs up.

After a quick clean up, I got dressed in a t-shirt and a pair of Lucah’s boxers and joined him in the living room. He held up a sticky note without saying anything.

You should really leave a note when you’re going to have sex. It’s a common courtesy.

-Ryder

“Well. He remembered to leave a note,” I said, handing it back to Lucah. He crumpled it up and went to throw it away.

“It’s progress,” I said, and he just shook his head.

Over the next few days we made more progress. Baby steps. Lucah went back to work, and Ryder voluntarily went to his therapy sessions with the farting therapist. Sloane cooked us dinner every night and Ryder helped her do the dishes.

It was our new normal.

“So, we’re going to be at my parents’. Would, you, um, like to come?” It seemed rude not to ask Ryder if he wanted to come with Lucah and me. I mentally crossed my fingers that he’d say no.

“Rory, you’re not obligated to invite me over to your family dinner. You’re not my family, and I’m sure you wouldn’t want me at your parents’ probably gigantic and fancy house.” Okay, so my house was gigantic and fancy, but that wasn’t my fault. I’d always worried about the fact that he’d grown up poor and I hadn’t, coming between Lucah and me, but I didn’t consider that it would cause a rift with Ryder. There went all that ground we’d gained.

“Well. I thought I would ask. Excuse me for being nice.” I’d found the best way to deal with him was to give it right back. That seemed to be the only thing he would respond to.

“You’re excused,” he said with a smirk. I wanted to slap it right off his face, but I just gave him my sweet smile back.

“What are you talking about?” Lucah said on his way from the bathroom to the bedroom to get dressed.

“Nothing,” Ryder and I both said.

“Besides, I already have plans today,” Ryder said, and he seemed very pleased with himself.

“And are you going to elaborate on those plans, or keep me in suspense?” I said, making sure I had my phone in my purse.

“I think I’ll keep you in suspense. The payoff is better in the end, don’t you think?” Somehow I didn’t think we were talking about his plans. He seemed to have also been given that knack of turning nearly everything into an innuendo. Wonder where he got that from?

I didn’t answer Ryder, but I didn’t have to, because someone opened the front door.

“Hey, hey, hey. What’s up?” Sloane was dressed in a tight tank top and jogging shorts. I nearly fell over.

“What’s up with the outfit?” I said, gesturing to it. I’d never seen her wear such a thing. I didn’t know she even owned anything like that.

“We’re going running in the park. You know how much I love running in the park.” Her glare told me that I should agree with her.

“Oh, right. Yeah. Running in the park.” I didn’t sound convincing. “That sounds like fun.” It sounded like hell. Who on earth actually would choose to run? Running was reserved for shoe sales and escaping from bears, in my opinion.